The prior art provides various types of coating compositions for use in decorating glass and ceramic surfaces. One well-known class of coating compositions used to decorate glass and ceramic surfaces is commonly referred to as glass enamels. Glass enamels generally comprise one or more glass frits, pigments, fillers and a vehicle. Glass enamels are generally applied by heating the glass enamel to form a flowable dispersion, squeegeeing the dispersion through a masked screen onto the surface to be decorated, and then firing the decorated object to around 1200.degree. F. to drive off the organic constituents of the vehicle and fix the frit and pigment to the surface.
Another class of coating compositions for use in decorating glass and ceramic surfaces is commonly referred to as organic coatings. Generally, organic coatings provide an advantage in that they do not have to be fired at as high of a temperature as glass enamels. An example of a thermoplastic coating composition may be found in Hart, Jr. et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,202,162. The '162 patent concerns a thermoplastic coating composition comprising a blend of at least two thermoplastic materials. Examples of thermosetting coating compositions may be found in Knell, U.S. Pat. No. 5,346,933 and Kiel, deceased et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,150. The '150 patent discloses a coating composition comprising an acrylic resin containing reactive hydroxyl groups, an ambifunctional aminoplast resin containing reactive hydrogen atoms and an adhesion promoter comprising an ambifunctional epoxy reactive silane. The '933 patent discloses a coating composition comprising a blend of epoxy resins crosslinked with an amine containing crosslinker.
Unfortunately, none of the prior art coating compositions meet the requirements of commercial high-speed, multilayer, screen-applied decorative coating systems.